1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of dentistry and oral surgery. More particularly, this invention pertains to the art of tooth implants and the use thereof in the jawbone of an individual in order to replace teeth which have been lost by extraction or injury or which are otherwise missing from the jawbone.
2. Background Information
Proper dentition is highly desirable for adequate mastication of food and operation of the jaw. Thus, proper dentition is important from a nutritional point of view. It is also important for cosmetic purposes. When one or more teeth are missing from a person's jawbone, for example, due to a previous extraction or injury, it is important for the patient's well being to replace the missing tooth or teeth to restore proper dentition.
Various methodologies have been used in the past to replace missing teeth. In general, these procedures require anchoring the replacement tooth into the jawbone (maxilla or mandible). For this purpose, various types of anchoring devices have been developed for retaining the replacement tooth so that it is immobilized in the jawbone. However, these devices often fail to adequately hold the tooth in place and consequently such failure would typically lead to infection and/or rejection of the implanted tooth.
Attempts have been made to use bone graft techniques to assist in the formation of a strong foundation for later inserting a prosthetic tooth without causing rejection symptoms. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 4,277,238 discloses a bone graft which can act as a spacer for a missing tooth or can serve as a foundation for a false tooth. However, the technique described in the aforementioned patent requires insertion of porous bone graft material into the existing socket of the missing tooth so that the porous bone graft material eventually becomes ossified whereby the ossified implant conforms to the shape of the socket previously occupied by the root of the missing tooth. Thus, instead of using a natural root, this technique replaces the root of the missing tooth with bone graft material which is inferior to the genuine root of a natural tooth. Furthermore, this prior art technique limits the space for the implant by confining it to the geometric space defined by the socket with the periodontal membrane left in place.
In view of the above inadequacies of the prior art, a need remains in the art to provide a tooth implant and method of implantation wherein the implant includes the natural root of a tooth which can serve to anchor an upper replacement part (i.e. crown) of a tooth.